A Mother's Love
by yaaaaaaayme
Summary: Naruto's mother returns to Konoha after twenty years of absence. But will the blond shinobi want her back? And what new secrets surround the two of them? Character death.
1. The Red Haired Woman

The plot bunnies have made quite the nest in my brain…

This story is based entirely on things that have not yet appeared in the anime, so if you do not want to be spoiled of (what I believe were fairly obvious anyway) plot elements, then I suggest you do not read this. The story deals with the identities of Naruto's parents.

It will probably be a pretty short story, and I'll only be posting small chapters, not long ones. Why? I dunno.

On with the show!

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**Chapter 1: The Red-Haired Woman**

Uzumaki Kushina made a promise. There was no way she was going to break that promise; it was against her code. Besides… any fears she was having weren't enough to keep her away from him…

Her son.

In truth, she hadn't wanted to leave Konoha in the first place, but that was also part of the promise. She sighed and looked up at the large gates in front of her. She smiled; this place felt more like home than the Land of Whirlpool ever did, and now she was returning to it after a very, very long time. 20 years, actually.

That was the other half of the promise.

_20 years…_ She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her bright red hair. _It certainly has been a long time…_

Kushina approached the gates, where the guards attempted to stop her. She merely held out a scroll with a very particular and old seal on it. As if this wasn't a surprise enough to them, one of the guards took it and opened it, reading it quickly. His eyes widened at not only the content of the letter, but even more at the signature at the bottom.

"Y-you may go in," he stammered, handing it back. She entered the village, her wide smile the only thing visible beneath her hood.

She stopped once she'd gotten a little ways in, looking around at a familiar part of the village. Not much had changed. She looked up at the five stony faces of the Hokages that had been carved into the mountain; one face in particular made her sigh again.

_It seems like just yesterday that I watched them carved that face up there… Minato… why did you have to be so stubborn?_

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Tsunade was feeling old. Not that she wasn't, but lately, even the illusion she used to make her look young couldn't hide the way she was feeling. It was time to step down soon.

She turned to the man that was in her office with her; he didn't even glance up from the orange-covered book that he had his face buried in.

"Kakashi, I'm serious about this," she said to the silver-haired jounin, "Now again, I ask you, will you accept the position?"

He sighed and closed the book with a small snap, putting in his back pocket. "I've told you… I'm not the right person to be the next Hokage."

"But it's obvious that you're the best choice!"

"No, there's always―"

"Naruto is still too young. Plus the council won't allow him to be Hokage, not yet anyway. Believe me, he would be my first choice."

"The Yondaime was also young and didn't have the support of the council, yet he made a great Hokage. And Naruto…"

"I know."

"Speaking of which, have you seen Naruto today? I wanted to wish him a happy birthday. Though he does usually seem to disappear on his birthday, though…"

"Actually, he's on a mission with is new genin team. They should be home pretty soon… They're in Wave, protecting the construction of a second bridge."

"That sounds very familiar," Kakashi laughed, "And imagine how surprised his students will be when they see that their sensei already has a bridge in Wave named after him. I hear the 'Great Naruto Bridge' is still doing well."

Before Tsunade could respond, there was a knock at her office door.

"Tsunade-sensei, it's Sakura. May I come in?"

"You're earlier than I expected, but yes, enter."

The pink-haired woman entered and stood before her former sensei. She had matured greatly in the years since she had been on team 7, and now stood very confidently as the second best medic nin in all of Fire country.

And she was currently 5 months pregnant.

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The newest team 7 was coming home earlier than expected. The youngest of the three was a boy with dark brown hair and a moody look on his face. He stood at the rear of the group of four, his hands in his pockets as he acted like he didn't care about anything. He had graduated Rookie of the Year from the academy and was considered genius. Directly in front of him, glancing back every few seconds to look at the boy and sigh longingly, was a girl with very tan skin and dark green hair. A blush appeared on her tan skin whenever she turned to look at her teammate. The third member of team 7 was a boy with bright orangey-red hair who was walking confidently with his hands behind his head. He was obviously trying to ignore the way the green-haired girl was looking back at genius boy.

At the head of the team of shinobi, leading the genin, was their jounin sensei. His wild blond hair stuck up everywhere and the three whisker-marks on each of his cheeks gave him a fox-like appearance.

Uzumaki Naruto turned and looked back at his team and smiled. He had a feeling that this birthday would be different than any other.

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Tell me what you think, please!


	2. Enter: Uzumaki Naruto

Happy (a bit belated) holidays, everyone! Here are your [―insert winter solstice-surrounding holiday here―] presents! That's right; I'm updating every single one of my unfinished fictions.

Damn, that was a long time… sorry for taking so long to update! Um… if you read it a long time ago, you'll probably want to go back and read it again, in case you forgot what was happening (hell, _I_ even forgot what was happening!).

**Warnings: **language (naughty, naughty…)

I'll get right to it then. Enjoy the chapter!

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**Chapter 2: Enter: Uzumaki Naruto!**

Sakura's baby was due in December. Lee was ecstatic to be soon having a child around to raise and eventually train. Sakura forbade him from molding their child in Gai-sensei's image, though.

Tsunade finished her examination of Sakura and they returned to the Hokage tower from the hospital. Sakura sat down in a chair in the office to relieve the strain of her baby bump on her legs and feet and Tsunade sat down at her desk, careful not to topple the large stacks of papers and scrolls that littered the top of it. She'd just gotten everything all straight and organized, when―

"Yo, Baa-chan!" a familiar voice yelled. The door slammed open, shaking the walls of the office and revealing a loud, blonde-haired ninja. His genin team stood slightly behind him. "Team 7, reporting!"

"You're sure upbeat," Tsunade commented, making sure nothing fell off her desk. Surprisingly, nothing had when Naruto had pushed the door open. When his team was inside, he shut the door with another resounding bang. A stack of scrolls began to topple over, but Tsunade caught it in time. "I assume your team's first outside mission was a success?"

"Yep," he replied with a smile, "With no mishaps or unsuspected visitors… Not like our first mission to Wave, eh Sakura?" She smiled slightly along with him, remembering what that mission had been like. Tsunade grabbed a blank mission report scroll from her desk and tossed it to Naruto. He caught it unblinkingly.

"You know what to do…" Tsunade said, "Just fill that out and hand it to my secretary. She'll give you your mission pay." He nodded, smiling, and began to lead his team back out the door. Before he got there, however, there was a knock on the office door. "Enter."

The door opened slowly, softly… through it, a woman entered. Her face, as well as most of the rest of her, was covered by a hooded cloak. An odd sense of familiarity washed over Tsunade, as if she had known this woman a long time ago… or perhaps in a previous life? Whatever. It wasn't as if Tsunade actually believed in such things as past lives; she just thought, if asked to make a comparison, that this is what meeting someone from a past life would be like. She didn't mean it in the literal sense but― what were they talking about again? Tsunade sure was feeling old…

Tsunade blinked out of her thoughts and looked the woman up and down. The recognition was nearly there, like a word on the tip of her tongue that she just couldn't force out.

"Name and business?" Tsunade asked of her. The woman lifted her arm, showing a scroll that she'd been carrying beneath her cloak. She walked forward and handed it to the Godaime, who gave one look at the seal on the outside and instantly knew who this person was. "That's impossible…" she said in an amazed whisper. "Naruto! You stay." She halted the jounin in his tracks as he was leaving with his team. He turned and looked at Tsunade, about to make a joke about old hags and their need for control. But he saw the serious look on her face and stopped before he began.

"Sensei?" asked Miyoko, the green haired girl on Naruto's genin team, "What is it?"

"You're dismissed," he replied, looking back at his team, "I'll make sure you get your mission pay."

"But seeeenseeeeeei," whined Takeshi, the smallest on the team but by far the loudest (well, excluding Naruto himself).

"You're dismissed," Naruto repeated a bit more forcefully. Reluctantly, the three genin exited the office closing the door behind them. "What is it Baa-chan?" Tsunade paused a moment, finishing her reading of the scroll she'd been handed.

"Kushina," she said absently, her eyes widening a bit at one of the passages the scroll contained, "Please remove your hood."

"Of course, Tsunade-sama," Kushina said, doing as she'd been instructed. As she pulled the hood of her cloak back, a sheet of bright red hair tumbled down her back. She was looking at Naruto, who gazed back, feeling as if he had met this woman before, but didn't have any recollection of who she was. Kushina smiled, her eyes shining with joyful tears. "Naruto…" she whispered, rushing forward to him and wrapping her arms around him, "My son…"

The blond jounin was stiff in the embrace. He looked down at the woman holding him, who was shorter than him by almost a head, and struggled for words.

"Um… w-what?" That was all he managed to get out.

"If what this scroll says if true," stated Tsunade, putting down said scroll on her desk and looking at him over folded hands. Kushina pulled away from the one-sided hug. "Then this is Uzumaki Kushina. Your mother." Kushina nodded with rapture, as Sakura congratulated them in the background, saying how wonderful it was that they were finally meeting.

Naruto didn't think so.

"Bullshit," he said flatly.

"Naruto!" shouted Sakura in a positively scandalized voice.

"My son… I've waited so long to come and see you here…"

"Are you even aware that this is my twentieth birthday?"

"Of course, that's why I came!" Her voice was deeply saddened.

"Bullshit," he repeated, "I'm officially an adult now. That means that you left me here alone for literally my _entire_ childhood. Even if you really are my mother, I don't know why you even bothered to come here."

"Naruto," started Tsunade, "There is a reason behind it… Here read this scr―"

"I don't care about what she has to say." Kushina looked at the ground silently, reflecting.

"It's from your father," she said quietly. "The Yondaime Hokage."

Naruto blinked at her, his eyes wide with amazement.

"W-what? The Fourth is…"

"Your father," Tsunade supplied. Naruto continued to look amazed for a moment, but his eyes soon narrowed.

"You knew about this and you didn't tell me?" he accused the current leader of Konoha.

"You weren't allowed to know," she countered firmly.

"I―" he took a deep breath, "I've admired the Fourth for my whole life, but…" He placed a gentle hand over his navel, where a swirling demon's seal was located beneath just a few layers of fabric. "What kind of father… curses his own son in such a way?" Naruto paused, but did not wait for any answer. "I'm leaving, I'll be back later."

"Where are you going, brat?" the Hokage asked.

"To see Sasuke," he said simply, moving towards the door. He tilted his head towards Sakura. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"Not this time, Naruto," she replied, shaking her head tiredly. He nodded, and was gone from the room without a trace.

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I know it's short… Chillax, people. I've already written the next few chapters, and I will post them periodically over the next month or so. You know, to prevent the super-long gap in which I don't update. Yes. Like last time.

Oh, and the thing with Sasuke? It's probably not what you'll be thinking…

Review, please!


	3. Those Who Returned, Those Who Departed

Oops, sorry! This chapter has been typed for a while; it just was buried among all the chaos…

**Warnings: **it's sad!

Oh, remember that the legal age for adulthood in Japan is 20 years old.

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**Chapter 3: Those Who Returned, Those Who Departed**

"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto said softly, "It's been a while since we last talked, hasn't it? Sorry about that. I've been going on a lot of missions lately with my genin team. I told you about them, right? Oh, I didn't… Well, there's Miyoko, for one. She reminds me so much of Sakura from when we were little, you wouldn't believe it. And there's Akihiko. He's always cold and moody, but he's actually a really skilled strategist. Little bastard…" Naruto laughed a little. "In short, he's exactly like you. And, oh! Who could forget Takeshi? He's really loud and runs around and never pays attention. I swear he has ADHD, but I can tell he's going to go far." Naruto grinned, thinking fondly of his team. "What? Yeah, you caught me… He acts exactly how I did when we were on Team 7. It makes me wonder how Kakashi-sensei ever dealt with us. They're good kids, though.

"Oh! Speaking of kids. Sakura's due with hers in December. Can you believe that she and bushy-brow actually got together? I mean, Lee's mellowed out a bit, but he's still pretty much a nut. She loves him though, which is good. Her stomach is _huge_ now! Oh," He paused, looking around for a second, as if the hormonal medic-nin would jump out at any moment. "Don't tell her I said so, though. She'd probably hit me if she heard me say that… Um," he paused again, his eyes downcast. "The real reason I came to talk to you was because, see, this woman showed up in Baa-chan's office, and she claims to be my mother. I― I just don't know how to deal with that. You know that I've never had parents, right? Well, what's more, she told me that the Yondaime was my father. I mean, really― me? The son of the Fourth Hokage? That sure would have been a great thing to be able to brag about when we were kids… The thing is, I'm not sure if I can accept this. And I wish… I wish you were here to give me some advice…" Naruto took in a shaky breath. "We all really miss you, Sasuke. Sakura misses you really bad, but it's too hard for her to come down here right now. I miss you…" his voice cut off, choked by a strangled sob.

The Konoha graveyard was deserted and quiet, save for a single jounin with bright blond hair who was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of one of the tombstones. The jounin had been speaking a moment ago, but had finished and was now simply watching the grave marker through tears that never fell. He only broke the chilled silence of the area with the occasional hiccupping breath.

"I'll come back and talk later, Sasuke," Naruto whispered after a short while. As he began to get up, a shadow fell over him in the slanting light. He looked to find Kushina offering a hand to help him up. He ignored it and stood on his own, still looking at her steadily.

"A friend of yours?" she asked softy, dropping the hand.

"Best friend," he corrected, "And former teammate."

"How long ago was it?"

"Nearly two years now…"

"Did he die in battle?" Her voice was empathetic. Naruto nodded, not wishing to argue. Not here.

"He was a missing-nin for a while, actually," he explained, "But when it came down to it, he returned to the village. We were being attacked and losing too many people to continue fighting. Sasuke… h-he fought beside me for a while. We were both giving everything that we had, but the enemy was really strong. He ended up sacrificing himself to save my life and the lives of many villagers. It was the turning point in the battle that allowed us to win…" Naruto trailed off again, lost in the memory. There was a short stretch of silence as they, the sole living creatures above ground in the large graveyard, reflected on those they had lost.

"He sounds like a good man," Kushina commented.

"He was," Naruto whispered.

"Your father was a good man, too. He sacrificed his life for the good of this village, as well."

"I know."

"Things just didn't go as he planned after he died. He wanted you to be honored as a hero―"

"I know the story… I just don't understand how he could have put this burden on his own son."

Kushina smiled sadly. "There weren't very many other children born at the right time. But even if there had been a hundred newborns at the time, he just couldn't force such a thing on another family. It wouldn't be fair no matter what he did. And everything he did was to protect you, the future of this village. If it were known that you were his son, enemies from all over would have come to attack you. That is why you bear my last name, and not his."

"But why did you have to leave for my whole childhood?"

"Minato― that is to say, your father, made me promise to not return to the village until you were an adult. There are many things that you were not allowed to know until you were of legal age. No one can prevent you from knowing them now. But if I had been here, there are those who would have known your true identity, and hidden these things from you permanently."

She smiled still, and held her arms out, waiting for a hug from her grown son. He turned away.

"I need time to think."

He was gone again. Kushina lingered, the only spot of life in a sea of death.

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I need to stop listening to sad music. It makes me write things like this.

I know these chapters are painfully short. Call me a tease, but I like it that way. And it doesn't look like this is going to be a long story anyway-- it'll probably last just a few more chapters.

Review, please!


	4. Why?

Mild writer's block and an insanely busy schedule…. But I'm done with school now, so I have so much more time to write (and think!).

Thanks for all of the reviews; the good ones and the… not so good ones. Common opinion is that Naruto seemed to accepting of Kushina last chapter, and that he shouldn't act that way. Well, good news for all of you, that was more about _where_ they were when they had that conversation, not about him accepting her (you could re-read the chapter with this mindset, and you'll see he's being pretty guarded). This chapter should be more of what you'd expect….

Also, someone actually suggested that I make Naruto and his mother― allow me to repeat that; his MOTHER― a couple. Um, ew?

**Warnings: **language

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**Chapter 4: Why?**

Even his team could tell that he was subdued. And, strangely, they didn't know _how _they could tell.

There was nothing obviously different about their sensei; he was just as bright and shiny as usual, laughing through a cheek-splitting grin as he ran a hand through his unruly spikes of blond hair. But he was… _off_ somehow.

"What is this?" Naruto laughed, looking down at his three students. They were at their usual meeting place where they always met before and after training― conveniently located just a few feet from Ichiraku's Ramen Stand. "You're all looking at me like I'm something you can't figure out. Did I grow an extra head again?" he joked. "I have got to stop doing that…" They continued to look at him intently. "No? Well do I have something gross on my face?" He ran a hand over it, just to make sure. Miyoko decided to cut his confused suffering short.

"Sensei's acting different…" she declared.

"What makes you say that?" the jounin asked, trying to keep up the act.

"You're just being weird," replied Akihiko shortly. "You've been like this since yesterday."

"I haven't got a clue what you're talking about," Naruto finalized stubbornly. "Come on… we don't have a mission today, and we've got a little time to kill before training some more. I'll treat you all to something at Ichiraku's."

At the obvious distraction, Takeshi took a few steps towards the restaurant. "Acting different or not, a free meal is perfectly fine with me!"

Naruto laughed as he followed the fiery genin, ducking slightly under the cloth banners hanging from the roof of the ramen stand. His other two students joined them shortly, the team now occupying four of the six seats at the tiny restaurant. For a while, excluding the lingering feelings that Naruto's good spirits were forced somehow, the afternoon was basically as normal as any other the team had spent together.

About halfway through the meal― meaning Naruto was soon to finish his third bowl― another customer sat down at the counter. It was a woman with a generic cloak wrapped around her, the hood pulled up over her head to cover her face. For a moment, she was ignored. But as Naruto placed his bowl back down on the counter, a laugh bubbled up from under the hood.

"What a cute genin team," she remarked, "I see the Hokage is honoring the traditions for composing teams. What was it? The brightest boy and girl with the class clown?" Upon this statement, Naruto did something that he had rarely ever done while at Ichiraku's.

He put his chopsticks down before he'd finished eating.

His students stared from him, to the woman, and back to him again. This… probably wasn't good. The jounin looked down at the table, where his hands rested lightly in loose fists.

"Why are you here?" he asked in a low voice. The woman pulled her hood back, revealing a bright smile that made her features light up. It was very similar to the way that Naruto himself looked when he smiled; that didn't bring him any comfort.

"Why am I here?" she repeated in a considerably lighter tone, "Well, I heard from several sources that this is the best ramen stand in town, so I thought that I'd―"

"No," Naruto cut her off, his fists now clenching as he turned to look at her for the first time since her arrival, "I mean, why are you _here_? Why did you come back?"

Her smile lessened just the slightest bit, and she now looked at him with what could have been perceived as a politely questioning face, her head tilted slightly to the side as she blinked at him. Polite, perhaps, but something beneath the smile made Naruto's stomach do an unpleasant flip. He pushed himself up from the counter and reached into his pocket, drawing out his wallet as he addressed his students.

"Here, I'll pay for the meal now," he told them, placing slightly more than enough money down on the counter. "Meet for training in half an hour."

Not waiting for a reply, he ducked back under the cloth dividers and into the bright sunlight. In a flash, he was gone from sight, quickly moving away from the area on the rooftop highway belonging to Konoha shinobi. The blond teacher's three students huddled with their heads close together, discussing. Furtive glances were shot towards the still smiling woman until she, too, disappeared into the sunlight and out of sight.

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Naruto maintained the same training grounds as he had when he was a genin on team 7. It was a tradition.

He had come with the intention of burning off some of his pent-up anger and stress with a few high-level jutsu and some target practice. But once he actually got there, he found that he just wasn't up to it. Instead, he flopped backwards onto the lush grass and stared blankly up at the bright sky. His vision was filled with nothing but the expanse of clear blue; he even wished that there could have been some clouds overhead. Perhaps that would have served as a distraction.

_Can't she leave me alone? _he asked himself silently. _First the Hokage's office, then with Sasuke, now at Ichiraku's? I wonder if there's any place she won't try to follow me…_

He stayed that way for a while, left alone with his thoughts. But not for long enough.

He heard her coming. He _felt_ her coming. And even if he hadn't been able to sense her long before she came into view, Naruto knew that she would have followed him there eventually. Apparently, nothing was sacred.

"Naruto, honey, what's wrong?" she asked as she came closer. "You look upset over something."

He didn't answer, if he did, he wasn't sure what would have come out.

"Oh, my baby boy," she continued, voice filled with an imitation sympathy that grated on his nerves. "Let it out… Your mother will make you feel so much better."

That, however, made him snap. He sat up, glaring at her.

"Apparently, you can't take a hint," he stated, quickly getting to his feet. "You may be my mother, but you have no claims on any motherly feelings."

"But I _do_ love you, my son."

"And yet you only show up in my life after I've grown up."

"I told you, your father wanted―"

"I don't really care what he wanted! The way I see it, both of you abandoned me."

Kushina's smile faltered for the first time since the start of the conversation.

"Is that what you think?" she asked in a low tone, her false cheerfulness now gone. "You think we did this to make you suffer all alone?"

"It's not what I think," Naruto corrected in a growl, "It's what I _know_."

"You were supposed to be taken care of," she protested, her voice also gaining a dangerous edge.

"Well that didn't exactly happen, now, did it?" he shot back, his voice rising.

"Minato set up a plan that was supposed to―"

"Whatever plan he had didn't work as he wanted it to! You're using it to justify what you did, when you didn't even care enough to check it if I was ok!"

"You were supposed to be treated like a hero, supposed to be loved by everyone in the village!"

"That's all you ever talk about! What was _supposed_ to happen… well it didn't! I wasn't treated like a hero, I was _hated_― for my entire childhood!"

"You can't blame him for that! I told you, his plan was―"

"Fuck his plan!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"

"You have no authority over me! I understand my father had no control over what happened…. But you! You could have stayed!"

"I made a promise, it was all for your protection!"

"To hell with that! If you were so worried about my safety then why―" He cut off for a moment, and then lowered his voice considerably. "Why didn't you take me with you?"

Kushina was silent for a moment.

"You want to know the truth?" she asked coolly, "You really want to know?"

Naruto glared at her silently; she took it as a yes.

"I couldn't stand the sight of you," she confessed bluntly, "You were a filthy little child, and I knew you would be the one who was to take my Minato away from me." Naruto's eyes had widened, and he stood there, simply listening to her burning words. "I knew what he was going to do; I knew he was going to seal that _thing_ inside you." By his sides, Naruto's hands balled into fists. "You were tainted… And I can tell by the way you act, you're _still _tainted by that evil creature. Give me back my son, demon!"

Struggling to keep calm, Naruto gritted his teeth and ground out the word, "Go."

She didn't move, a sudden look of horror crossing her face at what she had revealed― and the anger he was showing.

"Just leave me the hell alone," he hissed.

Over a low grassy hill, the remainder of team 7 wandered across the field to report for training with their sensei. What they found, however, was he and the woman from the ramen stand standing in front of each other, neither one talking, but both looking upset. The sight of them seemed to shake the woman out of the mild stupor she'd been put in. She took a few steps back, made a seal, and was gone in a puff of smoke.

The three genin approached their teacher slightly warily. It was rare to see him in such a bad mood, and when he looked at them, still appearing deep in thought, it seemed, for a moment, as though he might actually yell at them.

"You can continue on your own if you want," he said after a moment, "But, officially, training for today is cancelled."

With that, he, too, dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

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Whew! The tension mounts…

This story will most likely be over by either the next chapter or the one after that.

Review, please!


	5. Forgiveness

Last chapter, guys! This is actually my first fanfiction that I'm finishing. It's been an… interesting ride. I know the story was short, but that was really the only way that I had planned for this to be (sorry it was spaced out over so long!). So, here it is, enjoy the last chapter! It's longer then normal…

**Warnings: **well… telling you would spoil the ending, so… just be warned that something major happens (your mind can fill in what that is and you can decide to read or not). Though I guess I can tell you about a little gore.

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**Chapter 5: Forgiveness**

"Naruto, there's something you should know about your mother…"

"No, I don't want to hear it! I just want her to leave me alone. Isn't there any way you can get rid of her?"

"You want me to just kick her out of the village, is that it?" Naruto glared at a spot a few feet to Tsunade's left. He didn't answer the question, but it was clear to the Godaime that, yes, that was exactly what he wanted her to do. "I can't do that, gaki."

Naruto paused for a second. "And why not?" he asked after that second was up.

"She has every right to be here. She returned on an executive order from the Yondaime and, unless she gives me an actual reason for me to do so, I have no need to banish her from Konoha."

Naruto sighed and looked around the Hokage's otherwise empty office. Sakura normally accompanied all guests into the Hokage's office, but she was taking the day off to get some rest. Her pregnancy was really taking a lot of her energy.

"What do you mean by 'actual reason'?" the Jounin asked, intently studying the pattern on the far wall.

"Unless Kushina breaks a law or severely hurts someone―" Tsunade began.

"She has hurt someone!" he cut in, turning back to her with angry eyes. "She's hurt me!"

"Naruto…"

"No, you didn't hear the things she said to me! There's no way I could ever forgive her."

"Honestly, you need to look at this. I found her file in the archives. The real reason that she―"

"I said I don't want to hear it."

The words had been spoken in a low voice, his tone that of finality. The Hokage sighed, closing her eyes and folding her hands in front of her.

"If that was all," she said, "Then you may go."

The blonde Jounin nodded and left the office without another word.

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

It's never wise to try to fight with a madman. He has nothing to lose.

But the shinobi of Konoha were forced to either fight with said madman or allow him free reign over the streets of their village. It really wasn't much of a choice.

To be accurate, it wasn't just any madman. It was a highly skilled and deadly madman― a missing nin from Iwagakure with some sort of personal vendetta against a woman from Konoha who had spited his affections. Having been drunk at the time, however, he had no idea of where _in_ Konoha the woman lived, or even what she looked like beyond a fuzzy outline. So he settled for running through the streets of the Hidden Leaf Village, screaming for some woman named Keiko to come out and face him like a man.

And though he was in the heart of the village, having been all but herded there by several Jounin―including Naruto― and a small group of ANBU, they were having trouble taking him down. To put it bluntly, he was a fast little bastard and his twin hooked swords could block almost any attack, long-range or otherwise. They needed some kind of distraction.

The man had already killed two guards on his way in when they tried to sound the alarm (as if his continual yelling for Keiko wasn't warning enough), so they knew the S-class criminal would be quite a task to handle. But they had him surrounded in a town square, which they'd successfully cleared of civilians.

"Keiko!" the man screamed, his head swiveling back and forth and the whites of his eyes standing out from his sunken features, though he seemed mostly unaware of the shinobi surrounding him on the ground and on rooftops. "I'm not giving up on you!"

The ANBU crouched beside Naruto as they emerged from an alley between two buildings and gave a signal to him. He understood; they needed a way to gauge exactly how dangerous this missing nin was, and Naruto's skills were perfect for that.

The swordsman suddenly found himself surrounded by about 50 of Naruto's clones, and it seemed as though he'd finally taken a bit of notice to what was going on around him.

"You're just jealous of my Keiko!" he howled at the clones, slicing through a line of them like rice paper. His footwork was fast and his blade work even faster; clone after clone puffed out of existence as the metal twirled and glinted in the sunlight. The clones weren't making any impact, as the man continued to wail for Keiko. But they had, however, served their purpose.

Naruto had seen a slight weakness in the man's defenses; in his obviously unstable condition, he wasn't paying very much attention to what happened to the clones after he slashed them. Naruto would use this to his advantage. It would take a bit of a sacrifice, but it was a perfect way to catch the shinobi off guard. The blond ninja made another mass set of clones, but instead of hanging back to watch at they attacked him, he ran forward along with them. They needed a distraction; that distraction would have to be himself.

"More?!" he growled, "More people trying to keep me from Keiko?" He looked around at Naruto and his clones as if barely seeing, and then wailed the woman's name again, his voice cracking several times in the process. The mass group of Naruto rushed into attacking. The ninja quickly cut through the clones as he had last time, and he seemed to be taking the bait. The real Naruto caught a slash across the forearm― one that hurt, but would heal easily at his accelerated rate― and the man turned away immediately, the smoke from dispelled clones acting as a veritable smoke bomb.

And there was his opening. Naruto dove out from the smoke and caught the man in a hard roundhouse kick, immediately followed by a punch that sent him sliding a few feet. The remaining ten clones held back, waiting. They were joined by the other shinobi watching from the wings.

It seems as though the direct attack had finally made the man realize that he was in a fight. He stood from where he had landed and fixed his gaze on the real Naruto. He swayed slightly where he stood, holding the swords loosely at his sides as a maniacal grin spread across his face. He ran forward at the Naruto, who was ready for the attack. The blond blocked the first few hits with kunai he had taken from his weapons pouch while the man was on the ground. While the man was very skilled with his weapons, Naruto took advantage of the hooks at the ends, trapping the two blades together with a kunai and kicking the crazed man in his stomach and forcing him away spinning slightly.

But then the man whirled around with the tips of the swords hooked together, sending the hilt of the one farthest from him into the fleshy part of Naruto's shoulder. A pressure point. The Jounin felt his muscles go limp and he could barely move and certainly couldn't defend himself from the ensuing kick to his chest. The blow knocked Naruto back, and he slid along the ground for a few yards, trying to get his bearings. When he sat up, the insane man was there, just a few feet away with one of his swords jabbing towards the stunned jinchuuriki at an alarming speed. He closed his eyes for a second, waiting for a pain that would undoubtedly _sting_ a bit, if the last one had been any indication…

But the strike never came. He opened his eyes again and found the face of Kushina staring back at him. She had come seemingly from out of nowhere, and was now between her son and the madman who had been threatening him; the tip of his sword protruded from her stomach, piercing her just below the ribcage. She coughed once as she stood suspended there by the blade, a look of surprise on her face as the missing nin pulled a few times at the sword, the hook of which appeared to have been caught on her sternum. As it turns out, this was exactly the distraction the surrounding ninja needed. The three ANBU who had been present for the fight took advantage of his moment of frustration to surround him as the clones around them dispelled, giving cover. Just as he yanked the tip of the sword out, causing Kushina to fall back to the ground and stare up at the sky unmovingly, an ANBU shinobi cut him across the throat. He stumbled for a bit, but the wound was fatal.

Naruto stood and looked at Kushina, noticing that he chest was still rising and falling in shallow, gasping breaths.

"Why?" he asked, bending over her, "Why did you jump in front of me? I would have gotten away or fought back or… or _healed._" He was sorely reminded of the time from way back when he was a genin, and Sasuke kept him from death at the hands of Haku. Even if he disliked the woman, seeing her do that was painful. "Why did you save me?"

"Because I'm your mother," she rasped out, the inside of her mouth coated in an eerie shade of dark red. "And I love you."

"But… _why_?" His voice came out choked he desperately wished for the answers to everything.

She didn't answer in words this time. The bloodstained corners of her lips turned upwards just slightly and she reached a shaky arm out to Naruto. Almost close enough to touch him, but not quite able to, she made a motion with her hand as if she was caressing his cheek lovingly. Her eyes shone with an odd light as she gave him one last look of pride and love.

And then that light faded, and her hand dropped limply to her side.

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

The Konoha graveyard was deserted and quiet, save for a single Jounin with bright blond hair who was standing between two rows of tombstones. For a moment, his gaze remained at his feet.

"It's ironic," he said to the cool, wet air, turning to look at the headstone to his left, "That they buried you so close together."

He, of course, received no answer.

"Sasuke, I really do wish you were here," he continued, still looking at the older stone. As fate would have it, the row with Sasuke's grave in it had ended a while ago, and a new row has begun; Kushina now rested directly across from where the last Uchiha lay. Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, then turned to look at the stone bearing his mother's name. "Tsunade-baachan told me everything," he said in a low voice, "I almost wish I listened before… well, before. Your file, it said everything you could never tell me. Depression, huh? I'm surprised no one guessed. Though my father did, I suppose…" He trailed off, reflecting.

It was all laid out in the file Tsunade had dug up on Uzumaki Kushina; everything Naruto hadn't understood about the reasons for her abandonment, set down in medical records and letters from the Fourth Hokage. Postpartum depression was the official name. But her sanity had been crumbling even before her child was born, and the father of that child had been wise enough to see the signs― the brief but terrifying psychotic fits that occasionally gripped the woman and made the Yondaime fear for her life as well as the life of his unborn child. He thought he knew the solution. The fox was attacking, and he knew exactly which jutsu he would be forced to use to save Konoha― as well as the toll that would have on him, his son, and the already breaking Kushina. That was the reason for the promise; while Naruto was taken care of as a hero in the village, she would go away until there was no chance of her hurting him in any kind of psychotic episode. Naruto was supposed to know about his mother, that she would return…

That she loved him.

And she did, in her own way. She tried. She desperately wanted to be in the life of her son. But she never really healed from the issues that affected her 20 years earlier and, though Naruto had grown enough that Kushina could not harm him physically, she had hurt him nonetheless. The damage was done.

"I know what that was, now," the blond continued after a moment, "When you said those things to me…. And even if you weren't fully in control, you must have thought those things deep down somewhere. It would have been better if you had never come back at all― at least then I could have imagined what happened to you, instead of finding out the truth. And with everything you did… whatever your motive, whatever you truly felt… I can't forgive you. I can apologize for many things, but I just cannot forgive you."

The man turned his head to Sasuke for a moment, almost apologetically, and then turned back to Kushina for one last look― not of pride, not of love, and not of forgiveness or apology, but of multi-layered regret. Then he bowed his head, put his hands in his pockets, and left somberly, never looking back.

**x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x―x**

El fin! Yes, it ends that way, kind of sad and bitter. That was the only way I saw fit.

I'm not sure if people will pick up on some of the subtle symbolism is that last part, but, meh, I was in a deep mood, so expect double meanings.

Well, I may go back and edit or fix some parts of the earlier chapters, but for now, this story is done. Reviews are strongly appreciated!


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